A lot of people pulled together yesterday to exert maximum pressure on John Edwards not to fire his two female netroots outreach employees, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister and Big Brass Blog. And it payed off.
John Edwards in News Feed of
2/08/2007 at 11:36 AM ESTThe tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwan’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.
An elegant response to a tricky situation. I’m glad he took some time to work this one out and I’m very glad that he made the right decision. His online support would have plummetted, particularly among the blog-writers that were all threatened by the Catholic League’s bullying attacks. Chris Bowers spoke for me when he said.
If Amanda and Melissa are terminated from the Edwards campaign, there is no way I could respect either myself or the movement and support Edwards in the primary. His campaign will have contributed to the longstanding goals of the conservative movement and DLC-nexus alike to defund, marginalize, ostricize, and otherwise diminish the influence and credibility of the people-powered netroots and grassroots. Such a move would reinforce every elitist, ignorant, double-standard, disinformation campaign ever run against the netroots and the blogosphere. During a primary election, when Democrats are trying to decide what direction our party will take, I won’t be a part of a campaign that decides to run as fast as it can away from the blogosphere, the netroots, and the progressive movement.
Edwards made a wise decision. His enemies don’t care about him. It’s much wiser to piss them off than a legion of potential supporters.
If that’s a sign of how principled he would be as a President, that’s a really good sign, indeed!
I think he would have responded in this way anyway. You do realise he was in two different cities yesterday and was wise not to make any snap decision or announcement. It seems a lot of bloggers are looking for a reason to jump ship on this campaign without looking at the bigger picture.
pre-blogosphere I am 90% sure they would have been shit-canned. Of course, pre-blogosphere they never would have been hired.
and I think people keep forgetting that part of the equation.
Being presented with a challenge like this, it is a test of character and cleverness to find a way to acknowledge the issues raised and yet to make the right decision. Mr. Edwards navigated this dilemma with skill and panache. I applaud his decision. I feel that he HAD to retain the bloggers – he had selected them, and thus his judgement was on the line.
If we allow our opponents to select our staffs, that would be pretty ridiculous.
He did exactly what I recommended in the debate here yesterday. It was the right decision. However, I fear he has fatally shot himself in the foot.
Well, as a politician in America I guess Edwards has to serve the prime directive: those who speak wearing the mask of “faith” have automatic immunity from criticism of their beliefs and an absolute right to give their predictable outrage at being contradicted the force of law. They themselves, of course, have a god-given right to consign those who disagree to Hell and employ limitless invective, as well as blaming their disagreeable beliefs for terrorist attacks and natural disasters, among other crimes and misfortunes.
In the medieval atmosphere this country breathes, the best that can be expected from any “serious” pol is that he at least avoid letting idiot theocrats choose his staff. Nonetheless, Edwards’s weak submision to the ridiculous notion that “maligning” anyone’s “faith”, as opposed to freely attacking non-brand-name beliefs by law and force as well as words, makes me kind of sick. Still, Edwards probably showed more guts on this than most of the field would have.
This tempest in a teapot does serve to light up a more interesting point, though. It makes it pretty clear that people using blogs as stepping stones to political positions are inevitably going to either compromise their own writing by keeping their asses covered or compromise the candidates who hire them. American politics is a fantasy game of super-clean Ken and Barbie dolls that don’t exist in the real world. Bloggers who sanitize their writing in order to qualify for political stature will have nothing of interest to say. Those who write as actual humans cut themselves off from success in Ken/Barbie world — at least if they’re not Repubs, who can erase all past error by utilizing the name of Jesus.
Maybe separation of blog and state is going to prove as important as separation of church and state.
I’m happy about Edwards doing the right thing…you summed it up nicely boo when you said his enemies don’t care about him-thus will never vote for him anyway but it would have been a very very bad start to piss off a potentially huge group here on the net.
Or another way to look at this…
Edwards is a weak, centrist politician. That is, he is in a weak position as opposed to say STRONG centrist like Ms. Clinton. Like any politician in a vote-oriented system, he did the numbers and came up with a decision.
“His enemies don’t care about him-thus will never vote for him anyway but it would have been a very very bad start to piss off a potentially huge group here on the net.”
Yup.
This is not about “principle” except perhaps the principle of attempting to please his power base without totally losing the few strays that might wander in from the religious right.
You want “principle” from this man?
Let him sell his mansion and his stock portfolio/investments, distribute say 60% of his wealth to those who need it. (Thereby rendering his own personal wealth and that of his family down to say a VERY comfortable upper-middle class status.)
I got yer “principle” right HERE!!!
Then maybe he can talk about the nation’s poor while wearing an unworked-in work shirt and holding a hammer in hands that I will GUARANTEE hold no work calluses.
His triangulation here?
And:
Politics as usual.
He’s a minor character in this game.
A mite bigger than Biden, and that only because he was chosen to run and lose with Small K kerry in ’04.
He’s a talking haircut who says things that please the middle-class left.
But he don’t walk the walk.
Fuggedaboudim.
AG
AG, I think you are being a bit unfair towards Edwards. He does indeed come from a working class background and knows very well the needs of the average working stiff. In fact, of all the candidates, he may be the only one who will be able to represent the majority of people in the US (i.e., the workers). I agree he is a politician, which by its very definition, is evil, but he is a far cry from the likes of Hillary.
Yeahm he comes from a working class background, and he left it just as fast and as far as his little feets would carry him.
I am sorry, Kamakhya, but I do not buy his act.
He is a lightweight.
Hillary Clinton is SO much more complex than this man. She is a political genius, in my estimation. Now whether she will be able to carry out her balancing act on the level of say FDR or Lincoln…two other Presidents who were (and remain) thoroughly reviled by the left as “too centrist”…is an oopen question.
But this guy is a CARTOON compared to her.
On every level.
Sorry…that’s what I read from him.
I wish for more. I wish for a Dean or Feingold. But they are not forthcoming.
AG
Here is his problem.
Two homes, two images, one candidate.
Democrat John Edwards, who has made an anti-poverty message the theme of his 2008 presidential campaign, is taking heat for the lavish home he has constructed in Orange County, N.C.
In December, Edwards chose the modest backyard of a New Orleans woman who had lost her home to Hurricane Katrina as the image that best underscored his campaign theme.
Now voters are seeing another, sharply contrasting image of Edwards: his own home.
Sitting on 102 secluded acres — surrounded by trees and defended by no-trespassing signs — the 28,000-square-foot estate that Edwards and his family call home has presidential privacy.
A main home has five bedrooms and six-and-a-half baths. It’s connected by a covered walkway to a bright red addition known as “The Barn,” that includes its own living facilities along with a handball court, an indoor pool and an indoor basketball court with a stage at one end. Nearby, the family has cleared space for a soccer field.
With a current building value of $4.3 million, the unfinished Edwards estate is already about $1 million more expensive than any other house in the county, according to tax records. It sits on land worth about $1.1 million.
Edwards first purchased the land in 2004, during his failed run as vice president. He recently sold his mansion in Washington’s tony Georgetown neighborhood for $5.2 million.
Edwards, a former trial lawyer who made millions before winning a seat in the Senate representing North Carolina, has faced criticism regarding the estate. It also has become the subject of late-night jokes.
“Well, I think we know which America he’s living in,” Jay Leno quipped on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” a riff of Edwards’ frequent mention of the “two Americas” — one for the wealthy and one for the poor.
Monty Johnson, a neighbor whose property sits directly across from the Edwards tract, recently posted a “Go Rudy Giuliani 2008” sign just 100 feet from Edwards’ driveway.
“The home is a monster. It’s way over the top,” Johnson said. “There’s no way that a normal family could ever need a house like that. It’s only going to hurt him. I don’t think he’s going to be able to sell his story that he’s for the poor people.”
—snip—
Jennifer Palmieri, an Edwards adviser, dismissed the brouhaha as of little interest to voters.
But political consultant Bill Miller said the lavish estate could become a sore point for the candidate.
“Anything that appears to be extravagant or over the top is not the best card to play when you’re running for president — especially when you’re trying to differentiate yourself the way John Edwards is,” said Miller, who has worked closely with the Republican Party.
—snip—-
This is a problem.
Now indeed:
On the GOP side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the founder of venture capital and investment firm Bain Capital, owns three homes. Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) also owns real estate worth millions of dollars.
ALL the other candidates.,..on both sides…are living high on the hog. Financial and lifestyle overkill has become a necessity in today’s political and social climate of greed, just as was a big belly in Grover Cleveland’s time.
BUT THE OTHERS ARE NOT RUNNING ON A “HELP THE POOR FOLKS” PLATFORM.
It’s not the he is rich.
It’s just that he does not have either the political talent and/or the self-control not to place himself in a position where he has one foot on the dock and the other on a fast-departing boat.
Nor has he the sense not to be photographed wearing working class drag.
I mean…PLEASE!!!
The money he paid for his haircut could feed a working class family for a week!!!
Plus his run with Small K kerry
will haunt his political aspirations the rest of his life.
He already looks like a cross between Batman’s Robin without the mask and the unfortunate, totally ineffective luster after women played by the late John Ritter in the TV sitcom “Three’s a Crowd”.
Having played Robin to a LOSER Batman is the kiss of political death.
Fuggedaboudim.
He’s going nowhere.
No chops.
Not for the Big Leagues, anyway.
AG
I won’t hold my breath for a retraction from Salon, however…
I realize that we’re never going to have a 100% perfect candidate — every candidate is going to have something that pisses someone off. But so far, Edwards seems to be making the right moves. And just as Clinton proved to be more centrist than people thought, who’s to say that Edwards won’t be more leftist/progressive than people think? At any rate, Edwards will be better than any of the crop of Republicans itching for the White House…
I have problems with Marcotte writing with absolute certainty (and ignorance) about the Duke case. And then after bringing it up once again (her blog about Duke equaling OJ) to delete any comments that didn’t follow her own Pandagon hymnal was pretty offensive. Considering that there is no evidence of a rape and there hasn’t been, for Marcotte to continue to presume their guilt is a sorry endorsement for her ability to judge fact.
There is a curious parallel between the Simpson case and Duke case though. In both there were alleged crimes that could put the defendants in jail for a long time (Simpson for life, 30 years in the Duke case) and there were alleged socially offensive crimes. In Simpson’s case he had to be a murderer because he beat his wife because he was a murderer. Each presumption amplified the other crime.
In the Duke case there was a presumption of guilt because they were racists because they beat up the woman because they were racists because they raped the woman. Therefore, these boys had to have said the magic n-word sometime, so they probably said it to the woman and if that’s true then who cares what they really did. Each charge amplifies the others. The way that this loop continues is for people to remain ignorant of the facts of the case. Marcotte seems determined to maintain her ignorance and the ignorance of those who read her.
The evidence of the three defendants saying anything of the sort to the accuser, or even talking to her, is missing, just as there is no evidence of the claim of rape/kidnapping/sexual assault.
I would like Marcotte to actually become informed about the case before she makes any comments. But I don’t think she will.
Well, maybe. Let’s look at why he was in that clutch to begin with. Is this a sign of how he’d vet and pick court appointees, cabinet members, heads of agencies, etc.?
I was very disappointed to see what I take as a sign of sloppiness and weakness, because much of what he says I like.
My only thought was… weren’t those things written BEFORE either Amanda or Melissa went to work for him? They did not write those things as representatives of his campaign, right? So what’s HE apologizing for?
I agree that as his campaign employees, Amanda and Melissa should consider what they write and how it might be perceived (there’s lots of ways to be blunt about the truth, after all). But why should they apologize for what they wrote in the past? I don’t hear anyone asking Malkin to do so…. ever.
What I would have preferred was a statement that anything written prior to Amanda and Melissa’s joining the staff does not represent the views or positions of the Edwards Campaign. And then something along the lines of his having every confidence in their judgment and appreciating their valuable contributions in internet outreach to the netroots, etc. etc… Ie, disavowing connection to their previous writings but expressing his continued support for and confidence in them RIGHT NOW. Something like that.
We’ll see what happens the next time…. but he could have been a bit stronger. Still, if Amanda and Melissa are okay with it, I’m not going to throw him under the train just yet…. No candidate is perfect, alas.
it’s not comfortable to have Donahue come after your ass. He’s good at what he does. We had to make it clear that Edwards was in a no-win situation and he better side with his friends. I think he squirmed out of it pretty well.